1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network printer and a network printing method which enables the direct accessing of information resources existing on a network such as the Internet, downloading of the information resources and printing of the information.
2. Description of the Related Art
A network printer connected to a network such as a local area network (LAN) and shared by plural host computers is known heretofore. Such a network printer receives and prints print jobs from a plurality of host computers connected to a network.
Recently, demand for printing information resources on the Internet has been increasing as the Internet has been developed. For typical information resources on the Internet, there is a Web page described in hypertext markup language (HTML) and provided by World Wide Web (WWW) server and others. If a user wants to print a Web page, he/she accesses a predetermined WWW server via a host computer and requests the WWW server to download a desired Web page to the host computer. Next, the host computer converts the Web page to print data and sends the print data to a network printer to print.
In the above prior art, if a user wants to acquire information resources stored in a WWW server and others on the Internet as a printed matter, he/she is required to first activate a host computer to access the desired server, then request the desired server to download the desired document data to the host computer and finally request the host computer to print the downloaded document data.
Therefore, if a user wants to acquire information resources which are updated periodically such as a Web page on a WWW server as a printed matter, he/she must always activate a host computer to access to the server which takes a lot of time.
To solve the above problem, it is also possible for a network printer to directly download a Web page without using a host computer (this is not the preceding art).
However, a Web page is composed of not only text data but also various data such as image data and music data, and all types of data which is not always required for printing. That is, generally, most of the important information is represented by text data, and the image data and others fulfill the role of supplementing the information represented by the text data and the decorative role of a Web page. A normal printer interprets and prints only received print data faithfully. Therefore, there occurs a problem that unnecessary information is downloaded and printed by a network printer, useless data is transferred and in addition, the printing speed is reduced.
The present invention is made to solve the above various problems and the object is to provide a network printer and a network printing method wherein specified information resources are directly accessed and only predetermined information in the information resources can be received and printed.
To achieve the above object, a network printer according to the present invention directly accesses information resources specified by an external device, analyzes the configuration of the information resources and receives and prints only predetermined information.
The present invention disclosed in Claim 1 is directed to a network printer for receiving and printing information resources on a network comprising configuration analyzing means for actively accessing specified information resources via a network and analyzing the configuration of the information resources, acquired range setting means for setting the information acquired range of the information resources based upon the above analyzed configuration, receive control means for receiving predetermined information of the information resources based upon the above information acquired range, and printing control means for controlling printing means based upon information received out of the information resources.
xe2x80x9cNetworkxe2x80x9d includes not only the Internet and an intranet but also a LAN. xe2x80x9cInformation resourcesxe2x80x9d means a Web page of a WWW server and a file of a server according to a file transfer protocol (FTP) and others. xe2x80x9cThe configuration of information resourcesxe2x80x9d means the type of information, a file name and other parameters concerning the information resources.
First, information resources to be accessed are specified to a network printer by an external host computer and others. Or, a plurality of information resources are registered beforehand in a memory built in a network printer or in an installed external memory and information resources to be accessed by the network printer are specified by selecting any of them. For example, if a Web page is to be accessed, a uniform resource locator (URL) is input. Hereby, the configuration analyzing means accesses specified information resources and analyzes the configuration. The acquired range setting means sets the range of information to be acquired based upon the analyzed configuration. For example, the acquired range setting means may be set so that only text data is acquired or only static image data is acquired. Receiving means receives the acquired information and the received information is printed via the printing control means.
Therefore, the network printer actively accesses information resources without using a host computer and can acquire and print only predetermined information of the information resources.
According to the present invention disclosed in Claim 2, the acquired range setting means can set an information acquired range based upon the format of information.
xe2x80x9cThe format of informationxe2x80x9d includes the format of Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) as defined in Request for comments (RFC) 1872, 2045, 2046, 2047 and 2049 for example. Various formats for character information, a static image, a dynamic image, music and others such as TeXT (TXT), HTML, Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), Joint photographic coding experts group (JPEG), Moving picture coding experts group (MPEG), Tag image file format (TIEF), Audio video interleaved (AVI) and Music instrument digital interface (MIDI) exist. The acquired range setting means can be set so that only predetermined format data is acquired. Hereby, not all image data is impartially excluded but image data according to a predetermined format is received and the acquisition of image data according to the other format can be excluded.
According to the present invention disclosed in Claim 3, storage means for storing received information is further provided and the acquired range setting means can also set an information acquired range based upon the format of information and the contents stored in the storage means.
For example, if storage means such as a hard disk is provided to a network printer and information received is stored in the storage means, the same information that is already stored is not required to be received again. Therefore, the acquired range setting means limits the acquired range of information based upon the format of information and can set the suitable acquired range of information by excluding information stored in the storage means in the above range.
According to the present invention disclosed in Claim 4, the acquired range setting means can also set an information acquired range based upon the format of the information resources and the attribute information.
For xe2x80x9cattribute informationxe2x80x9d, the quantity of data in the information resources, the date on which the information resources are created, information display size, distinction between color and monochrome, the number of scales, distinction of an advertisement or not and others can be given. The acquired range setting means can be set so that information exceeding a predetermined data quantity, information exceeding a predetermined display size, color image information, advertisement information and others are not acquired.
According to the present invention disclosed in Claim 5, the acquired range setting means can also set the information acquired range based upon the format of the information resources and the communication state of a network.
For xe2x80x9cthe communication state of a networkxe2x80x9d, a transfer rate and the quantity of traffic can be given. If a network is congested, information can be promptly received and printed by excluding the acquisition of image information containing a large quantity of data and a load on the network can be prevented from being increased.
The present invention disclosed in Claim 6 is a network printing method for receiving and printing information resources on a network comprising the following steps: a step of specifying information resources, a step of accessing to the specified information resources via a network and acquiring the configuration information of the information resources, a step of analyzing the configuration of the information resources based upon the above configuration information, a setting step of setting the information acquired range of the information resources based upon the above analyzed configuration, a step of receiving information of the above information resources based upon the above information acquired range and a step of printing based upon the received information of the information resources.
Hereby, when information resources to be printed from an external host computer and others are specified, the configuration information of the information resources is acquired and the configuration is analyzed. Next, the range of information to be acquired is set based upon the configuration and only information in the set range is received and printed. Therefore, unnecessary information is never received and necessary information can be promptly received and printed.
According to the present invention disclosed in Claim 7, in the setting step, an information acquired range can be set based upon the format of the information resources.
Hereby, the similar action to the present invention disclosed in Claim 2 can be obtained.
According to the present invention disclosed in Claim 8, a step for storing received information is further provided and in a setting step, an information acquired range can be also set based upon the format of information and the contents of stored information.
Hereby, the similar action to the present invention disclosed in Claim 3 can be obtained.
According to the present invention disclosed in Claim 9, in a setting step, an information acquired range can be set also based upon the format of information and attribute information.
Hereby, the similar action to the present invention disclosed in Claim 4 can be obtained.
Further, according to the present invention disclosed in Claim 10, in a setting step, an information acquired range can be also set based upon the format of information and the communication state of a network.
Hereby, the similar action to the present invention disclosed in Claim 5 can be obtained.
The present invention disclosed in Claim 11 is a computer-readable medium on which a printing control program for receiving and printing information resources on a network is recorded and characterized in that the program comprises analyzing means for accessing specified information resources via a network and analyzing the configuration of the information resources, information acquisition managing means in which it is set every format of information whether the acquisition of information is right or not, acquired range setting means for setting the information acquired range of the information resources by referring to the information acquisition managing means based upon the analyzed configuration, receive control means for receiving predetermined information of the information resources based upon the information acquired range and printing control means for controlling printing means based upon information received out of the information resources to print.
Hereby, the similar action to the present invention disclosed in Claim 2 can be obtained.